The accounts on Facebook and Instagram spread
content linked to the so-called Querdenken movement, a disparate group that has
protested lockdown measures in Germany and includes vaccine and mask opponents,
conspiracy theorists and some far-right extremists.
Posts from the accounts included one making
the debunked claim that vaccines create viral variants and another that wished
death upon police officers who broke up violent anti-lockdown protests in
Berlin.
The action is the first under Facebook's new
policy focused on preventing “coordinated social harm,” which company officials
said is an attempt to address content from social media users who work together
to spread harmful content and evade platform rules.
Under its long-standing guidelines, Facebook
has removed accounts that use false personas or spread hate speech or make
threats of violence. The new policy is intended to catch groups that work
together in an attempt to get around the rules, while still spreading harmful
content.
In the case of the Querdenken network,
Facebook said multiple account holders used both individual and duplicate
accounts to spread content that violated Facebook's rules on COVID-19
misinformation, hate speech, bullying and incitement of violence.
It was that coordinated effort to deceive,
along with the harmful content and a history of past violations, that prompted
Facebook's action, according to Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security
policy.
“Simply sharing a belief or affinity with a
particular movement or group wouldn’t be enough" to warrant a similar
response, he told reporters on a conference call Thursday.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has put
some Querdenker adherents under surveillance as the movement has become
increasingly radicalized and its protests have attracted neo-Nazis and other
right-wing extremists.